Implementing justice

One essential research area in C4E is the
field of environmental justice. It has three
key aspects: distributive justice, which
is concerned with the fair distribution of
environmental goods and “bads”—ensuring
that communities don’t bear an unfair share
of factors like pollution that might create
environmental problems or poor health
outcomes; justice as recognition, referring
to the rights and abilities of individuals to
pursue their own identities, cultures, and
values; and procedural justice.

Procedural justice, notes Kimberly MarionSuiseeya, an assistant professor of politicalscience working in the C4E research initiativeon building sustainable communities,addresses questions such as, “How just is theprocess? Who gets to be at the table? Whatare the ways in which we can facilitate moreparticipation and deliberative democracyin the decision-making processes?” Eachof these elements of justice are central togood policymaking, and in her research, sheexplores how we construct ideas of justice andimplement them, as well as “how they actuallyaffect the individuals who are supposedly thetarget of justice interventions.”Marion Suiseeya, who worked as aconservation and development practitionerfor nearly a decade with stints in the U.S. aswell as Guyana, Thailand, and Laos, sharesan example of the difficulty in effectivelyexercising environmental justice from herwork in Laos. There, years of efforts to end apractice by poor indigenous farmers knownas “shifting cultivation” (popularly knownin the West as “slash-and-burn agriculture”)was linked to malnutrition in one of everytwo children in Laos less than a decade later.The initial practice was to let land lay fallowto allow nutrients and many dietary specieslike bamboo and mushrooms regenerate.While replacing fallow lands with plantationsor natural forest growth is great in principleand may reduce carbon emissions, explainsMarion Suiseeya, “What a political ecologistwould say is that the people who actuallyengage in these practices are the ones whoknow the most about how to manage the land,and what would be the right way to movefor ward. But when the powers that be—huge,global forces that have a particular definitionof a problem—come in, they can marginalizethose communities, and effectively strip awaytheir voices and rights to resources that are socritical to their livelihoods.”

Does diversity make a difference?
Raymond points out that there are also
plenty of communities in the U.S. with
environmental problems or challenges whose
citizens aren’t well integrated into decision
making in this country. Environmental

This landscape in Laos shows the farming practices of “shifting cultivation,” from the patchwork of
green and brown in the landscape (varying crops or fallow land) to the haze from the burning season.
Efforts to end deforestation and shifting cultivation in Laos have been linked to child malnutrition.
Photo by Kimberly Marion Suiseeya.